Texas Surgeon: an Autobiography Page: 68
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last one to disagree. However, there were mitigating factors. In
actual fact I had been studying biology, comparative anatomy,
physiology, and other subjects for many years with mature ap-
plication. Beyond this, I had had actual contact with sick people
in hospitals, an important advantage. Furthermore, though the
medical course at the Hospital School of Medicine was brief by
modern standards, it was intensive and highly competitive. The
classes were very small and clinical opportunity, because of our
affiliation with the Louisville City Hospital, was great.
The fact is, my principal lack was not so much preparation in
the sciences as acquaintance with the humanities. This was a
serious defect, which I only gradually repaired. It was a lack, I
believe, with scientific as well as social consequences. For think-
ing gains power in the utterance and writing of it, and the ability
to express is immensely fostered by cultural practice and ex-
ample. In mathematics the importance of the aesthetic factor is
obvious. But the same holds for biological science. Indeed, as I
know from personal experience, the intuitive and aesthetic as-
pects of thought are intimately allied, the one nourishing the
other.
Meanwhile I plowed my furrow as deep and straight as I
knew how. The Hospital School of Medicine, in my day, had
two amphitheaters for lectures and quizzes, as well as an anatomy
and operating amphitheater. There were also several labora-
tories, for use in the study of histology and pathology, which
were well equipped for the time.
Medical students were much rougher in their behavior than
they are today. The students' poverty and lack of accommoda-
tion, the pressure of the work and the unconscious struggle to
attain that inner objectivity which every physician and surgeon
must have to function properly all made, by way of compensa-
tion, for a boisterous attitude. One barbarous incident especially
sticks in my mind, since I was indirectly involved in it.
One day, while I was dissecting with great absorption about
the head of my cadaver, for even then my interest had centered
68
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Atkinson, Donald Taylor. Texas Surgeon: an Autobiography, book, 1958; New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth143566/m1/80/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.